How I Use It

While teaching students about story elements and the importance of having all elements to make a story, students created a short story that could be told through a comic strip. There are only 6 comic cells so the students have to be concise in what they want to convey as well as focused on the conflict and resolution of the comic. This activity works best with a maximum of 3 students but can definitely be done as an individual activity or a group of two. What worked was that the students learned how important planning is getting their story across. Students also had to have a caption explaining each of their comic cells. This "forced" them to put what was happening in that cell into one sentence. A great way to focus the students. What didn't work is that students that are not as focused or much more "wordier" than other students had a difficult time.

My Take

The comic creator was very user friendly. Students only to drag their characters, backgrounds, props, or word bubbles to the comic cell. All levels of learners were able to complete it. All learners were able to add their own "personality" to the dialogue providing for differences in the learning levels. The comic creator was a great way for students to have their story in comic form--something the students thought was pretty cool. What I would change would be to give the students the ability to change the sizes of the characters, props, or dialogue bubbles. There seemed to be a glitch sometimes that would not allow the students to go back to a previous cell without losing all info. There is no ability to save so students must finish it in one sitting. I would also like the students to be able to change the font.

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